Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1887-02-28

maiden of about fifty years, bony and
muscular, and grabbed and faithful,
who has been their maid of all work
ever since Mary's mother died seven
years ago.
1t would have been pretty lonely
for the young Priscilla without the
companionship of this elderly maiden
during the long absences of Captain
Alden. Grim and homely the one !;
gentle and lovely the other-the two
are fast friends. Mary humors the
whims of Rachel, and Rachel in re-
turn scOlds and watches over and pri-
vately worships Pris-Mary.
Mischief is in the captains eyes as
he swallows his coffee and masticates
till the table is cleared, and Mary
finds herself set suddenly as on a
pedestal where lately the supper
dishes had been, and the captain is
walking around the table thinking
that he never saw such pretty bit
of living statuary. A moment later
the mischief fades from his eyes as
he sees the strong likeness to anoth-
er girl he knew years ago. He catches
her on his shoulder, thence down into
his arms, with kiss hiding the flush
of tears in his eyes.
''Now tell me all about it, he
says. ''What means this Puritan rig
and Grandmother Alden's spinning
wheel?"
'sIts for an Old Folks entertain
ment at the church" says Mary, "and
[ am to be Priscilla, the Puritan
maiden; and Jacob Browne is to be
John Alden, and-oh, father could
not you be Miles Standish?"
"And have you reject me?" says
the captain. 81 couldn't stand that
I'd act worse than Miles Standish,
ten times over"
81 think it was John Alden that
acted badly" says Mary. 81 hate
him 1 don't think l could ever have
forgiven him !"
"Why sop said her father.
"Oh, for making me pop the ques-
ton. / should feel so humiliated
that should forever after hate the
man who made me do it. Such a
coward Making girl say she loved
him. never could have been Pris-
ella !"
elbow does the new minister get
along? What's his name?'
Mary has stopped to lay new log
on IlIe uIU. --~N -----
for moment. Then with little re-
serve in her tone, or something that
makes the words come a little stiffiy ::
"People like him. His name is
Endicotte.''
People do like the new minister.
The very shake of his hand warns
them to the heart. Quarrels, enml-
ties, iealousies, the small hatreds of
little hearts cannot live in such an at
mosphere as he creates. The church
has prospered since he came. He
is man with stirring New England
blood in his veins. The good old
deacons, while shaking their heads
at some of his advanced thoughts
and methods for church work, are
yet glad to have this young, sinewy
strength to pull them out of the
slough of Despond in which they, like
Christian, had almost stuck fast.
Now library is to be formed, and
the ssOId .Folks" are the means by
which the money is to be raised.
If the fall of snow is heavy there
will be splendid sleighing, and, as
the affair has been advertised in all
the neighboring villages, they may
expect a crowd. The young will come
for the sleigh-ride; the old for the
pleasure of seeing the young.
John Endicotte is unmarried, and
all the gossips have been trying to
pick him out a wife. But he smiles
Girl faces, sweet as flowers, glad
den at his smile; faces growing with
cred, with crows-feet gathering at the
ewes, and care wrinkles beginning to
show on the forehead, grow strangely
Young as he talks boys and girls,
young and old, gather around, all but
one, with face like rose blossom.
She is never near for more than a
moment, though John Endicotte feels
through every fibre of his frame when
she enters the room, and has con-
sciousness of her presence wherever
she is, even though he may not see
her,
That Sunday evening, when he
preached his first sermon, her eyes
looked up into his, and his looked
| down into hers, and their souls met,
it seemed. 1t had never happened
again. Something had come between.
When she looked at him, her eyes
looked, but her soul was hidden. He
had looked at her and watched the
color rise in her face and ebb away
to rush back again, and ebb and flow
and ebb and flow, while she sat mo-
tionless, looking up at the ten com
mandments emblazoned on the wall.
Even in the very midst of his ser
mon, when he, like the born orator
he was, was pouring out his very soul
TO this people, he was conscious OF